Intelligent Home Care Environment for Dementia Care

Abstract

This paper presents the design of an Intelligent Home Care Environment (IHCE) that supports people with early dementia in maintaining regular eating and drinking routines. Developed through the human-centered design framework, the system integrates an adaptive Reinforcement Learning (RL) AI module to personalize interventions for various user behaviors and environment contexts. Through collaboration with care professionals, we co-designed a three-stage escalated scenario as a nudging strategy and selected appropriate sensors and effectors to ensure the reminding process was non-intrusive. In addition, the IHCE includes a mobile application interface designed with Human-Centered Explainable AI (HCXAI) principles. This allows caregivers to easily retrieve system interaction results and insights through visualizations and summaries, thus supporting and enhancing daily care tasks. Professional caregivers reported that the system operated in a clear, logical, and easy-to-understand manner. These results show the system's potential for future real-world deployment. This work demonstrates how to use a human-centered approach to integrate adaptive AI, deliver contextual, interpretable, and personalized interactions, empowering both people with dementia and their caregivers.